An enranged Teessider was today jailed for two-and-a-half years for torching the bed he shared with his girlfriend, believing she had cheated on him.

Mark Miller poured petrol on the bed of his Eston home after a row with girlfriend Emma Ingledew over accusations she had been unfaithful on November 19 last year.

Today Judge John Walford jailed Miller. He had pleaded guilty to arson reckless as to whether life was endangered, but had been found not guilty on an earlier charge of attempted murder.

Prosecutor Simon Batiste said when Miller accused his girlfriend of betraying him on November 18 she had denied it. He left the couple's home in Guisborough Street, Eston, to stay the night in Whitby.

Later that day he sent her two telephone text messages, the first said: "Remember what I said would happen if you ever went behind my back."

Mr Batiste told the court that the next morning Miller went to a garage and bought three-and-a-half litres of petrol before returning to the house.

Once there he marched upstairs and into the bedroom the couple shared, pouring petrol onto the bed and setting it alight.

When Miss Ingledew could not put out the burning bed, she fled the room and the couple left the house by different exits. A neighbour is thought to have alerted the fire brigade to the burning house.

Distraught Miller drove to Whitby where he handed himself in to police and admitted torching the bedroom, said Mr Batiste.

In interview he said he wanted to destroy the bed the couple had shared if someone else had slept in it.

Mitigating, Peter Makepeace said that until this incident Emma and Mark had been "an affectionate couple and were planning for a family".

But, Mr Makepeace told the court: "This defendant had an honest and genuinely held belief he had been betrayed in the worst possible way and it is clear circumstances existed which could lead to such a belief, no matter how strong it was."

He described the arson attack as "not in any sense a logical decision".

Mr Makepeace said that in interview Miller said: "If it makes any difference, I would like to apologise to everyone for what's happened."

Sentencing Miller, Judge Walford said: "This is a dreadful case. This was such a horrendous offence that the public would regard my doing anything other than passing a custodial sentence as condoning a premeditated over-reaction to a perceived infidelity.

"The least sentence I feel that I can impose is two-and-a-half-years in prison."